Martin Luther King, Jr expressed his frustration with the white churches in his famous letter from the Birmingham Jail. Here is what he said:
I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years ago that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some few have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and with deep moral concern serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. … “What I did not realize was all of the national conversation about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as casting doubt on the validity of votes coming out of predominantly Black communities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,” he wrote.”
In the end, most white churches got behind the Civil Rights movement, at least to the point of giving lip service to supporting “civil rights” and opposing racism. Sadly, for many of them it has never gone beyond that and in recent times a good number of our churches have slid all the way back into supporting out front, open, racism. Others have contented themselves with simply sitting on their hands and doing nothing.
Now and back then when MLK wrote his letter most of these clergy clothe their support of racism in other issues and concerns. It’s not, they say, that they are racist. It is, rather, the unsavory affiliations of those who are condemning racism today. Or … it’s that abortion is so much more important that they have to back racists, even though they privately and almost in secret, deep, deep, deep down in their hearts oppose racism.
That’s a sad commentary on American Christianity. It’s a self-inflicted spiritual wound on the Body of Christ.
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